Faribault - Aug-14-1898

Dear Lucy & family,

We deserve every word of censure you _____________ and even more. It is a perfect shame we have not written you before. But we have had a very busy time last winter and this summer (Alice & myself). Mary, as I have hold you, has been very poorly the past year. Alice was with her for over two months last winter. Now she has a boy three weeks old today. I staid with her 1 week and Alice a week. May helped her last week and Orville boarded with us. It is difficult to get a good girl. Alice sewed for two months this spring with Mrs Morrow, learning dress making. She lives a mile from here towards town. Alice boarded at home. So you see that my time has been mostly taken up with getting the house work done. Horace and Celia visited us this summer. She has no children yet is quite fleshy. Alice is rather slim now.

Our place is begining to look quite home like. Father and Clarence set out a large lot of all the different kinds of berries, also currants, pie plant and asparagus, some apple trees and shade trees.

Crops are good this year. We have in five or six acres of potatoes. Good sale for them at the Institution. They have 6 or 7 hundred at the Inbecile now in all, help and patients. 3 or 400 at the Deaf and Dumb school.

Blanche's picture is nice. She had changed very much in her looks. It won't be but a few years before she can save mother a good many steps. I expect the boys have changed some to and have got to be quite a help to Father and Mother.

I hope SinClair will win out there in the Klondike country and will get enough gold to pay him for all the hardships he will have to endure.

You remember Kerrs people, well they got to Tulare at last. Mrs Kerr died there last spring. The wheat & fruit crop was used up by drouth so the rest of the family started for Pendleton, Oregon with their team. Lizy wrote that they drove 1500 miles. They had been there 2 weeks waiting for work and there was 100 teams there waiting for the same purpose. I am afraid they made a bad move.

Did the drouth reach your part of Cal.? Everything is so fresh and green here now. Apples are plenty this year. There is a great peach crop in Mich. & Missouri. I hope some of them will reach here.

We have quite a fine lot of flowers, a few house plants. Wouldn't Blanche & Chester like to see the five kittens the old cat has. They make a nice show on the green lawn. We have six young turkeys. Clarence found the eggs in the clover and put them under a hen to hatch. My hens do well. Have about 30 young chickens and 20 old hens. Orville found a nest the other day on the hay with 50 eggs in it. We milk three cows this summer and have a yearling heifer and a heifer calf we are raising this summer. We have raised two veal calves and have one now we expect to get $10 for it when it is 6 weeks old.

John & Mary expect to move to Todd Co in Oct. He will take a car load of stuff and go with it. Mary will stay here 2 or 3 weeks to do some sewing for herslf. Aunt Mary & Arthur still live in Faribault. He works in the electric light plant. Thad lives in St. Paul. I don't know much about the Forest folks now Grace Hatfield. Baby Gertrude grows like a weed. Can allmost run alone.

Remember me to Mother Clewett & Mrs Sinclair.